You've helped them one at a time. The real understanding is how the ideas CONNECT — teach that next.
The Witness (the primary-source lens — what did people THERE actually see and write?) ×The Counter-Voice (the critical-analysis lens — who benefits from telling it this way?)
You find a general's own diary describing a battle as a glorious victory. Why do you need both the Witness and the Counter-Voice?
The Witness then says: “If a source is written by someone who was actually there, you can take it as the complete truth.” — is that right?
The link: read what the witness says, then ask whose interest it serves.
See it through their eyes, then ask why they framed it so.
The Witness (the surviving primary sources — the records that made it into the archive) ×The Chronicler-of-the-Defeated (the stewardship lens — whose story does NOT survive in the winners' archive?)
The only surviving accounts of a conquest were written by the conquerors. What does the Chronicler-of-the-Defeated add to the Witness?
The Witness then says: “If a group left no surviving records, we can safely ignore their perspective entirely.” — is that right?
The link: the archive holds the winners; read who is absent from it, too.
What was written, and who was left out of the writing.
Capstone — investigate one historical claim together
Three lenses on one claim. Bring in the cast member for each.
Read what the people who were actually there wrote. Who?
Who do you bring in?
Ask who benefits from telling it this way. Who?
Who do you bring in?
Ask whose story is missing from the surviving archive. Who?
Who do you bring in?
The synthesis: read the source, question its motive, and recover who was erased — how a historian weighs a claim.
